2. Lex
CHAPTER 2
Lex
I reach Saint’s room at the same time as Zane. He stares at me as I bang on the door, his eyes dark and angry. Zane looks wild, and he’s shaved the back of his head more, so I can see more of the ink crawling up his thick neck. If you saw him in an alleyway, you’d run a mile in the other direction.
Saint opens the door yawning, half in and half out of his jeans, hopping on one leg as he pulls at the waistband.
“I was asleep,” he mutters. “What the fuck is going on?”
I shove past my twin brother, almost causing him to topple over.
“Vani is gone. I heard her bike. She found out that Reagan killed herself, and I think that bitch Angelica hinted that it was to do with us three.”
Saint rights himself again. “ Putain de merde ,” he curses. Fucking hell.
Zane nudges me. We need to take care of that bitch, she’s trouble , he signs.
“Agreed,” Saint says, “but first we have to find Vani. We can drive to the gate and ask security which direction she went.”
Zane signs again. Cameras.
He’s right. There are cameras, and they extend beyond the boundary of the college grounds and cover the roads out of here and some of the woodland too. They should show us which direction she went. God, if she’s halfway back to her father’s gang by now, we might have already lost her.
I want to break something. Zane looks like he already has. Hands busted as usual, knuckles spotted with fresh blood and broken skin. The man is a walking unexploded landmine. I eye him warily, but for now, he seems to be holding his shit together.
“Let’s go and see if the guards at the gate know anything,” Saint says as he shrugs on his fancy jacket and then grabs his watch. He shoves his feet into some slip-on shoes—they look like crocodile skin—and then runs his fingers through his dark hair.
“If the damn world was ending, you’d still deck yourself out like a peacock,” I mutter.
Sometimes my twin pisses me the fuck off.
He merely grins at me as if my words wash off his back.
“ Bah oui , and you’d look no different than you do now if we were ten years into the end of the world. I think your style could be called Dystopian Chic.”
Knock it off , Zane signs and glares at us both.
Saint blows him a kiss.
“You ready now?” I ask.
Saint nods. “Let’s do this.”
We leave his room, and Saint closes his door behind us. I know that under his cocky act, Saint is worried. When he gets scared, he gets doubly obnoxious. It’s like he can’t keep up the charm and nice guy act when he’s stressed, and the dark underbelly that is the real him shows. Whereas I don’t perform for others the way he does in the first place …except in the bedroom. Chalk and cheese, yin and yang, or maybe one another’s mirror image, who knows?
I think back to being with Vani and how, so far, she’s accepted our weird dynamic without judgement. It took her a little time to understand that Saint’s degradation doesn’t mean what she thinks—that just because Saint calls her depraved names, it doesn’t actually make her those things. She only plays at being our whore, our little slut—just for us, just for a while—and then she likes me to make her whole again.
She loves Zane for his size and strength. It gets her wet; I can tell. This woman might be someone we want to taunt and torment, but in a way, she’s the only person to truly accept the three of us as we are, and now she thinks we’re fucking involved in Reagan’s death.
She was perfect for us, and now she might be gone, all because of a fucking rumor.
“We should have done more to stop that rumor about us,” I say to the other two.
“If we’d fought it, we’d have only looked more guilty,” Saint points out. “Getting defensive is the worst thing we could have done. The dean knows it wasn’t us. We didn’t have all that much to do with her. It’s only because we were doing that stupid fucking play that I even spent much time with her.”
Dean Rossi made it go away. He used his money and power to cover it up, but it was to help the reputation of the college, not us. He never did a damn thing to put the rumors to rest.
Saint had been cast in a play with Reagan, and she’d hung with him, and by extension me, and sometimes Zane too, the odd time. It hadn’t been many, though. Reagan was too insipid for any of us to be interested in. But a rumor started about us and her being a thing, a depraved and filthy thing. Three on one, the way we are for real with Vani, but never were with Reagan.
Then she died, but we had nothing to do with it.
I think those shitheads, the Devils, started the lie because, at the time, we had a serious rivalry. Now, they’re whipped and far too busy playing house to be pains in our asses.
“We should have told Vani the truth,” I say.
Zane sighs and shakes his head.
Saint rolls his eyes. “Again, would have made us look guilty rather than innocent. Can you imagine? ‘By the way, Vani, the girl whose folder you’ve stolen, the rumors are we killed her, but we didn’t. Scout’s honor. Now, do you want to fuck us all?’”
I flip him the bird.
She didn’t ask, so we didn’t lie outright, but we did by omission, all so we could screw her.
I press my lips together and draw a breath. “So why the fuck is she even here? She was clearly investigating the girl. Why else take her folder? If she wasn’t looking into her death, what is going on? At first, I thought maybe Reagan’s father had sent her—you know what a fucking psychopath Jarl Olsen is—but it doesn’t make sense. If Jarl Olsen was behind Vani being here, wouldn’t he have told her Reagan was dead?”
We walk and talk at the same time, throwing out theories.
“Unless he’s fucking with her for some reason,” Saint offers as an explanation.
“Or he’s fucking with Rossi. If Rossi paid him off, maybe Jarl Olsen took the money and figured he’d get back at Rossi another way.”
Zane signs, Get back at Rossi, or get back at the three men who everyone is saying are behind Reagan’s death?
The three of us exchange glances, and I’m sure the same thread of unease has wound through us all. Could Vani be some kind of plant to screw with us? Was it always part of the plan to get under our skin, to make us care about her?
I shake my head. “But what about the MC she’s a part of? How the fuck are they connected to Jarl Olsen?”
“Business, perhaps,” Saint says. He frowns. “But, if she’s here to fuck with us, or Rossi, why the hell would she drive off in the dark, seemingly upset, or at least freaked out, because now she knows Reagan is dead? That makes no sense to me. Like, even if she didn’t know, if Jarl Olsen put her here, her finding out wouldn’t make her tear out of here at night, right? So we’re back to not knowing why the fuck she reacted that way.”
I scrub my hands over my face and let out a growl. “We’re missing something, and I haven’t got a fucking clue what.”
One thing I do know is that while we might have withheld information from Vani, she’s done exactly the same to us. That girl is a mystery we need to crack in more ways than one.
I guess that won’t matter if she’s run back to her father…or Jarl Olsen.
We arrive at the main doors to the college and step out into the dark. The cool air whips around my face, and there’s a hint of smoke on the breeze. That strange scent of fall that lingers even when there are no homes within miles to be burning fires. She’s out here in the cold and dark, and she’s alone. There must be miles of road between Verona Falls and her home, and she’s traversing it by herself. A girl on a bike. That’s asking for trouble.
As we walk farther away, I glance back at the college and notice how, for once, it doesn’t appear to be glowering at me. Instead, with the lights in the hallways, and the patterned glass on the top floors, it looks inviting compared to the dank, cold outdoors.
Without speaking, we all break into a jog, moving through the dark as one until we reach the parking lot.
We’ll take my SUV , Zane signs.
I nod, because it’s bigger than our sporty numbers and built for the backroads if we need it. We clamber into the Porche Cayenne, and he guns the engine before I’ve got the door fully shut. I’m in the back, Saint up front.
Zane tears off down the drive.
“Take it easy,” I say. “We don’t want anyone stopping us before we are even past the gates.”
Zane slows down and, when we reach the guard hut, he lowers his window.
“What the hell are all you students doing out at this time?” The guard shakes his head to himself. “First the girl, and now you guys.”
I lean forward, raising my voice to be heard from the back seat. “We need to find out where she went. Did she pass by here?”
“Dark haired girl? On a motorbike? Yeah, she did.”
“Why the fuck did you let her go?” Saint demands.
The guard scowls, and I read his nametag. Noel.
“Sorry about my brother, Noel. We’re just worried about her. Can you see on your screen where she went? Which direction? It would really help us, and it won’t reflect well on the college if she were to get into trouble out there.”
He looks at his screen and nods. “She went out the gate and turned north, but the cameras followed her a way, she turned off into the side roads up into the mountains.” He scratches his beard. “She seemed upset.”
Fucking great. She’s out there, upset and heading into the country roads.
“Which road was she last seen on?” Saint asks.
“Wait.” The guard pulls up a map of the local area on his phone and drops a pin onto it. “This is the route she took. I lose her on the cameras just after this point.” He pokes a stubby finger toward the end of a road where he dropped the pin.
I take out my phone and snap a picture of the map.
“ Merci .” I nod at him. “That’s a help.”
Zane slides the window back up then pulls out of the grounds, slow and sedate. He turns north and fucking floors the SUV. The engine roars, and Saint grabs the oh-shit bar as Zane practically does a two wheel turn around a corner. He keeps glancing at the map which I have open and held over the console between him and Saint.
“Um, Saint, maybe tell him where to go so he can keep his eyes on the goddamn road,” I grouse.
Saint turns to me, eyes flaring. “If we had been stricter with her, less nice and coddling, this might not have happened. She’d have not left without our permission if we’d treated her the way I wanted.”
Is he insane? I grind my teeth and resist the urge to smash his face. “You’re deluded. She’s already pissed at us. She thinks we killed Reagan. You think going all caveman on her is the right way to go? Nom de Dieu , Saint. You’re not the Lord God Almighty of pussy, you know? You’re not one to be lecturing me on how to treat women, you asshole.”
The vehicle slams to a stop, throwing me forward until the seatbelt cinches hard across my chest. Zane is already out of the car and running forward. In the light thrown by his headlights, I see why.
My stomach lurches. Oh, fuck.
“ Merde ,” Saint curses. “Holy hell, no.”
He’s climbing out of the car as I fumble with my belt. I jump out, running to catch up with Zane.
Her bike is on its side. Skid marks behind it show she swerved and braked pretty damn hard. Her bike is here, dinged up, but there’s no Vani.
Where the hell is she?
“Vani!” I yell. “Shout if you can hear me.”
Two things occur to me almost simultaneously. The first is that she might not be capable of either shouting or hearing. The second is that if she knows it’s us, that might be enough of a reason for her to stay quiet.
Zane turns around and around, his hands locked in his hair, looking up as if he’ll see a light in the sky guiding us to her.
Then he turns and races past me, back to his car. He returns a moment later with two flashlights, handing one to me.
“Don’t I get one?” Saint asks.
Zane signs. Use your phone .
Saint sighs and flicks his phone light on. He goes straight to the bike and trains the light on the ground around it. Even in the light, I can see that he’s paled.
“What is it?” I demand.
He swallows hard, his throat rolling. “Blood.”
“Fuck.”
I glance over at Zane. The muscles in his jaw flex and unflex as he’s trying to control himself.
“Let’s sweep up and down the road,” I direct them, knowing they need to do something productive before they both lose their shit. “Take a side each and check as far as the light will let us into the woods beyond.” I point down the road. “She might have crawled into the undergrowth and be lying there hurt.”
The other two nod their agreement, and we start out. What I don’t say to them is that if she’s crawled away and bleeding, why is there no sign of any blood trail farther down the road? Did she patch herself up? If she was that with it, why wouldn’t she have used her phone to call for help?
Or maybe she did? Maybe someone else came to help her, and that’s why we can’t find her? The only problem with that is the timing. There’s no way she could have called for help, and someone else came to rescue her before we did.
Plus, why wouldn’t they have moved her bike farther off the road? Vani loves that fucking bike. She wouldn’t have willingly abandoned it to be crushed by the next passing truck. She’d have at least gotten someone to move it to the side of the road.
It also kills me that if she was capable of calling for help, it wasn’t one of us she’d phoned.
I push my whirlwind of thoughts to one side and try to focus on finding her. We walk up and down the road, then into the woods, searching, but finding nothing. Not a single fucking trace.
“Fuck,” Saint shouts. “She can’t have disappeared into nowhere.”
Dread expands in my chest, making it hard to breathe. I finally have no choice but to give voice to what’s been worrying me.
“I think someone has her,” I say. “They must have found her, on the road, and taken her.”
“Who?” Saint demands, spinning to face me, his feet rasping against the ground.
“No fucking idea.” I bite the inside of my mouth. “Could be lucky and it might be a local do-gooder.”
Zane laughs silently and shakes his head. He holds the flashlight between his thighs and signs, Do-gooders are outnumbered by freaks out here.
He’s not wrong, but I don’t even want to think about that. God, where is she?
“Vani?” I shout again, feeling helpless.
Saint joins me, and soon we’re shouting her name until we’re hoarse.
Still, there’s no reply and there’s no sign of her.
Saint turns to me. “She can’t be far, right? There’s no other tire tracks on this road, only hers. It’s wet and muddy, which means we’d see them. So they must be on foot.”
He’s right. It’s one thing we have going for us. “Who else lives around here, other than Verona Falls residents?”
Saint plants his hands on his hips. “We’re too far from the town for anyone there to have walked out here.”
I draw in a long breath of the chilled air. “So maybe someone from Verona Falls has found her. We need to get back to the college, anyway. We can’t see shit in the dark. We’ll tell the dean she’s gone, and he’ll hopefully get a search party together. They might have dogs and stuff. She can’t be too far, like you say.”
Zane shakes his head, his face angry and tense. He writes on his phone notepad. No, the dean will stop us seeing her, or even kick her out of school. He warned us off her.
Saint stares at Zane as if he’s grown a second head.
I lose it. “We can’t risk her dying, motherfucker.”
Zane types again, shoving his phone under our faces. We can tell Domenic. Get him to call in some security to help search. He can do that, but he won’t have to tell his father.
“Why the fuck would Dom keep it from his father?” I ask, incredulous.
“You know, I agree, I don’t think we should tell the dean. We can find her,” Saint says.
He’s on Zane’s side too.
“Oh, yeah? With what? Supernatural powers? Psychic abilities? Fucking fortune cookies?”
“We’ll look for her and we don’t give up. Not until we find her.” Saint sets his jaw at me, and I know he’s not going to move on this.
I glance at Zane, and he nods, pointing at Saint. So, they’re in agreement. Great.
Uncertainty buzzes at the back of my mind like an annoying insect. What if this is all part of whatever crazy plan it was that brought Vani to Verona Falls in the first place? This whole thing could be a trap—a setup. What if Vani did know Reagan was dead, and she’s just a fucking good actress? She might have deliberately crashed the bike, knowing we’d stop and look for her, and we’re about to be accosted by Jarl Olsen and his men.
I keep my thoughts to myself, though I’m not one hundred percent sure why. Maybe it’s because if I’m wrong, putting these kinds of ideas in Saint’s and Zane’s heads wouldn’t be a good thing.
What would they do to Vani if they thought she’d been planted by Jarl Olsen?
No, that’s not her. It’s not an act. She’s as real as anyone I’ve ever come across, and right now she needs us.
“It’s better if we split up,” Saint says. “We can cover more ground.”
“Some madman might have her and be doing things to her as we speak.” I want to punch Saint’s lights out. “We need help.”
“What can Rossi do? The cops won’t search for her until she’s been missing for twenty-four hours, anyway.”
“Saint, that’s bullshit. Her bike is crashed. They’ll look for her.”
Zane types again. Let’s try, and if we haven’t found her in the next couple of hours, we go back to the college and tell Dom.
I relent with a low growl. “Jesus, fine. One hour, though. One goddamn hour. If we haven’t found her, I’m calling the cops.”
“We split up and try to search for her,” Saint orders.
Zane nods, and I sigh but admit defeat. I set my watch alarm to one hour, and then turn on my heel and stalk away from them.
I won’t wait a minute past that hour. If I don’t hear from either of them, I’m calling this in, consequences be damned.